Pretoria - The title of Miss Bachelorette South Africa 2022 has been scooped by KwaZulu-Natal-born beauty Mbali Mbanjwa at a ceremony held in Gauteng on Saturday night.
Mbanjwa was crowned the reigning queen at the event held at the Lyric Theatre at Gold Reef City in Joburg.
Tebello Mafomane from Gauteng was awarded the title of 1st Princess, while the 2nd Princess title went to Andani Munonde from Limpopo.
Chief executive Refilwe Mogale said the Miss Bachelorette SA contest was a women empowerment project that was presented in a pageant format.
The aim was to fight against gender-based violence and femicide, by giving unmarried women recognition and honour, through philanthropy, fashion, and beauty, she said.
The founder said the aim was to help create role models out of unmarried women so young girls from underprivileged backgrounds can stop misinterpreting marriage as a source of income and look to being self-sufficient.
“This is the only pageant in South Africa that focuses on women between the ages of 25 and 50 who are unmarried and independent with or without children.”
The third instalment of the competition took place in Gauteng for the first time, following the announcement by the organisers that it made sense because the majority of the entrants came from the province.
It was previously held in Limpopo.
And, Mogale said, the decision to move the show to Gauteng had indeed paid off as they received four times the number of entrants as opposed to when the show was held in Polokwane.
“Gauteng really is the hub of the economy so we received entrants from every province here, either here for work purposes or studying. Ultimately we’re happy with the representation of entrants and more so at being able to host the event at historic sites such as Gold Reef.
“We had 700 people attending the event, with performances by Ringo Madlingozi, which was very exciting for us given that this is our first instalment in Gauteng. We did not conduct nearly enough marketing aside from social media platforms.”
Big stakeholders were reluctant to join the project, she said, but she and her team were hopeful that the pageant had found the right home to spread its wings.
Among contest judges was Makgoshi Maponyane, hailed as a very important part of the history of the Miss Bachelorette South Africa Brand as she was the very first Miss Bachelorette SA to be crowned.
Other judges included medical doctor Tebogo Lerutla, actor Lesley Musina, and civil engineer Dikeledi Maboa.
Pretoria News